I slept a lot yesterday. Delicious unconscious delirium and getting rest helped bring acceptance in having put down my best friend, the legend, Easy Mac: Queen in the North.
With a clearer head, I can recalibrate to an emotional state of gratitude for every person who commented, texted, visited, sent gifts and flowers, and cried on the phone with me or in person. Saying “thank you” really falls short in response to the abundance of care; every gesture helped and made me feel loved. And that people loved Easy, too.
It feels a bit dorky to so loudly and publicly grieve for a very senior cat as I write this long ass sermon. There was a Guardian article about how on average sphynxes live for 6.8 years. Easy Mac not only surpassed the expectancy by doubling it, she also tacked on three more years. Her passing was not unexpected, it was just a day I dreaded. I hold on too hard in moments when I should accept the flow of nature; I doubt I will learn this lesson though it’s been taught many times. And while I am very supportive of others in all moments of grief, I tend not to extend the same compassion for myself leaving me embarrassed that I am taking up a shitload of space with a sorrow that is disproportionate in comparison to real and significant tragedies. There is pain but there is also perspective.
Every animal I’ve loved, I have had to witness their passing and am reminded that the last gift we can give is that of a dignified release. While the loss in the great mystery of the cosmos is very little, my emotions are very large.
During our time together, I experienced loss and difficulties, as have we all. And it was Easy who I would turn to for comfort, to establish a routine of care where I could love her and feel that love in return, and that ease made facing challenges, both personally and professionally in some hard jobs, feel achievable and like I could provide meaning to others because I was given meaning in daily gestures. So where do I turn for comfort now that she’s gone? How do I drown out the silence in an apartment booming with her absence? When I wake up, how do I prepare for the day without her?
When in pain, I assign meaning to coincidences or everyday normal occurrences, like a lot of people do when trying to make sense of their hurts. After Easy was admitted to the ER, the vet called and asked me to return for an in-person update. When I arrived, not only was the overseeing vet there, he was joined by the senior vet on call. The senior veterinarian was the same vet who put Liono down so many years ago in the very same place. And while she explained Easy’s deteriorating condition and our options, it was surreal to again see this kind woman who released Liono from his pain almost a decade ago.
They allowed me in the ER to visit my sweet girl, bundled in blankets, and even though her eyes couldn’t focus she meowed and lifted her head when she heard my voice. And in that moment, I thought, “there is a chance here. If I pet her and she purrs, we can continue treatment to right this ship…even though they maxed out her blood pressure medication, even though they told me she’d need a blood transfusion.” But while I bargained, her overseeing vet approached me red-eyed from crying while watching us together. And that’s when I made the decision.
After in the exam room, holding her head like I’ve done a million times, as the light left her body, her overseeing vet again became emotional and apologized for doing so in front of us. Which, tbh, I had never experience before in putting down other pets, but it helped validate the pain. He said, “I know how special she was.” In the lobby, the senior vet was there and said, “thank you for providing her that kindness.” Yesterday, my local vet called to walk me through what happened and confirmed it was the right decision.
Grief is for the living. And now that she is gone, I’m left looking back on our memories and a life shared for many many years. There must be a thousand photos taken of Easy Mac, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the photos were even higher in number. In scrolling through the photos on my phone and social media, I moved through years filled with graduations, weddings, anniversaries, birthday parties, babies’ first photos, new homes, and just sweet boring everyday life. There are photos of Easy Mac with my lifelong friends and then moving into the future photos of Easy Mac with those friends’ children. What an unbelievable privilege and a gift to have shared that love with her and by extension others.
As Easy Mac got older, one year, when she was fourteen, she got this rare parasite and she started to wither rapidly. The vets were mystified how an indoor cat got a parasite usually only found in cattle. After her diagnosis while waiting on a compound medication to pass the parasite, I spent almost a month in bed with her giving her subcutaneous fluid injections and hand feeding her. I promised that if she wanted to fight, I’d fight with her. And that when she was better, we would throw her a massive fifteenth birthday party.
Not only did we celebrate her fifteenth birthday, we celebrated her sixteenth, and then her seventeenth. My dedication to her meant that any gifted moment following her resilience would be met with gratitude and celebration.
In her last years, I would wake up in the mornings and feed her water from a mug and oversee her care. Further in the future and her final year, I found an unused journal with little prompts on the side of the road in West Philly. In 2025, I would start every morning brewing coffee with cinnamon in the grounds, proceed with giving Mac her medication, clean up after her, and giving her water from a mug and wet food. During this morning ritual, I would write or draw in the journal and show it to her. I called it “Breakfasts with Easy Mac.” I filled up the whole journal. And then started a new one. Every word, every moment, a small blessing.
The last bit of writing for her I titled, I’ll sing to you when I get home, and it goes like this:
Crowded conference room, filled with tired social workers taking a self-defense class. The tanned instructor, arms smooth and lumped with baseball muscles, tried to motivate us. “Remember your reason for surviving,” he said. “Say it out loud. Who needs you? Say their name. Then say, ‘I’m coming home for you.’”
A tired existence with an overburdened bank account, a life purposeless because of struggle. Who was I to demand a safe return? And to what? The solitude of a one-bedroom walk-up, pilled carpet and water-stained walls?
Except, of course, for Easy Mac. My cat.
The warmth of our connection, and breakfasts before work, each sipping from mugs. The green flash at twilight, her steady purrs unconcerned with anything beyond the edges of our gurgle in existence. Her ease transferable; contented sleep bundled under comforters with our snores synching. In those moments, the world softened.
Like scooping the spoonfuls of food to her mouth, neck stiff with age, her body humming with gratitude. In the ways she’s nurtured me with affection, I learned to nurture in return.
When the instructor asked us to shout our purpose, I said, “Easy Mac, I’m coming home to you.”
Fin.
Thank you for giving me purpose and the drive to create meaning, Easy Mac. For showing that I have great capacity to love and that love, even in its most humble forms, is transformative.
Every day we spent together was the best day of my life, and what an honor for so many years to finish a hard day by saying:
Easy Mac, I’m coming home to you.
You life is not so great 